The Freshpet Blog

06/06

Love at First Sight- Gus Kenworthy starts Fresh with the Sochi Pups

By: Katie

Our mission at Freshpet is to spread the power of fresh food to pets everywhere. We are wholly dedicated to improving the lives of pets and their parents, because they deserve it. Our Fresh Start program is part of that mission. We’re encouraging pet parents to incorporate more fresh, all natural food into their pets’ diets to see what the power of fresh can do.

Freshpet is making it easy for all pet parents to give their dogs and cats a Fresh Start. Simply visit freshpet.com to receive a coupon, downloadable scorecard to track your pet’s health improvements over time, and helpful tips from Dr. Katy Nelson, veterinary nutrition expert. And because Freshpet believes every pet deserves fresh, for each Fresh Start participant they will donate a fresh meal to the Humane Society International.

As part of the program, we’ve partnered with Olympian Gus Kenworthy who was so touched after witnessing the multitude of stray dogs in Sochi, that he brought a mom and her pups home with him after his silver medal win. Now Gus is feeding the Sochi pups Freshpet food and treats and is using Whistle Activity Monitors to keep track of them as they grow up healthy and strong. For the next few weeks, Gus will be sharing updates of his and the pups’ journey.

Gus shares the story of how he came to be the proud Papa of three loveable pups , and why fresh food is so important:

Getting to compete at Sochi was one of the highlights of my life so far. I was so lucky to be amongst some of the best athletes in world. What I didn’t expect was to meet the puppies while I was there. I saw the pups with Mama right outside of the Olympic Village and right away knew I had to bring them back with me. I had read and heard so much about the Sochi strays, but once I actually met them it was a totally different story. It was puppy love at first sight I guess you could say.

That day, I spoke to my buddy, photographer Robin Macdonald, who was in Sochi with me, and we both made a promise to take those pups home with us to Colorado where we’d give them the best possible lives. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

It took a few weeks of back and forth with countless officials and government offices, but I finally had the pleasure of welcoming Mishka, Jake and Mama to Colorado. I can’t thank Robin enough for staying behind to make sure the pups made it over here safe and sound and the Humane Society International for helping the whole process along. It was more difficult than we thought it would be, but it was worth in the end when we finally got to see each other again in New York.

Mama and the pups are loving Colorado. Mama is spending most of her time in Telluride with my Mom and Mishka and Jake are growing faster than ever. I was fortunate that it did not take long at all to potty train the pups when we arrived in Colorado.

We’d already spoken to a few pet food companies, but what I really liked about Freshpet was their commitment to using all-natural and healthy ingredients for the pups. They got in touch with me asking if they could send over some food for the dogs. I can’t wait to see what kind of effect this has on the dogs. Like I said, the pups are already great at eating, so I’m excited to see what kind of appetite they have for their Freshpet food.

Learn how you can give your pets a Fresh Start by visiting our page here.